


Courtesy Call

by Jain



Category: Psych
Genre: Character of Color, Community: purimgifts, F/F, POV Third Person, Past Tense
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-24
Updated: 2010-02-24
Packaged: 2017-10-07 12:30:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 852
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/65176
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jain/pseuds/Jain





	Courtesy Call

**Author's Note:**

  * For [trascendenza](https://archiveofourown.org/users/trascendenza/gifts).



"Abigail, hi! It's good to hear from you!"

There was a brief silence, in which Gus mimed his disgust at Shawn for answering his phone when they were in the middle of an argument over whether or not Shawn was financially liable for Gus's computer after he'd accidentally infected it with a couple dozen viruses while innocently surfing some porn sites (Shawn voted NOT), and then Abigail said, "Did I call at a bad time?"

"Of course not! Why do you ask?"

Gus harrumphed at him. Then he strode across the room decisively, took Shawn's pina colada yogurt out of the fridge, and began to eat it with a pointed look and with obscene moans of appreciation.

"You don't usually have that many audible exclamation points in your voice when you're talking to me on the phone. And do I hear someone _moaning_ in the background?"

"That would be Gus. He's embarked upon a life of petty crime, stealing my delicious dairy products from our office refrigerator. It's a sad end to a heretofore upstanding life."

Gus used his eyebrows and a series of increasingly graphic gestures to indicate that if Gus's $2000 computer was communal property, then so were Shawn's yogurts, and Shawn's mango sorbet (which Gus removed from the freezer and began to take alternate spoonfuls of in conjunction with the half-finished pina colada yogurt, in a move that Shawn couldn't help but applaud as a brilliant culinary innovation), and indeed any possession of Shawn's that Gus took a hankering to in the next decade.

After taking a moment to appreciate Gus's ability to communicate the word "hankering" with just his eyebrows, Shawn said, "But enough about my problems. What's up with you?!"

"I've been doing fine. Busy with work, you know, getting caught up with everything I missed while I was on leave. And also...I've kind of started seeing someone."

"You did? Oh, well, that's great! How'd you meet him?"

Gus frowned and stopped salivating all over Shawn's dessert, which probably meant that Shawn's attempt at sounding upbeat and carefree hadn't gone over as well as he'd hoped.

"Well, actually, I met her through you."

Shawn felt the bottom drop out of his stomach, a sensation not helped by his knees giving out so that he fell back onto the sofa heavily. "Her?" he asked, crossing his fingers and praying that she meant someone from high school, because there were only three women from his adult life that Abigail could be talking about, and they were his married boss, the woman he was maybe sort of in love with, and his _mom_.

"Juliet," Abigail admitted.

"Oh, hey," Shawn said. "That's...really, really great."

"Yeah," Abigail said, in the way that meant she knew that it really, really wasn't, but she wasn't going to call him on it. "So, anyway, I know we'd left it a little up in the air about whether or not we were going to get together again now that I'm back in the country, so I wanted to call and let you know that that's, um, not going to be happening."

"I'm crossing it off my to-do list as we speak," Shawn said, dropping his head back onto the back of the couch with a painful thump. It felt kind of satisfying, so he did it again.

"Okay. So, I'll see you around, I guess."

"See you," Shawn managed, and hung up before he could do something humiliating like weep noisily at her.

"What was that?" Gus asked, approaching him cautiously, poised to bound away like a jackrabbit if Shawn's obvious anguish were only a ruse to recapture his pilfered sorbet and yogurt.

"Jules and Abigail are dating," Shawn said. Just saying the words made them hit him again in the solar plexus, and he tucked his feet up onto the couch and curled into a fetal position.

There was a weighted silence; an unwary glance upwards showed Gus looking torn between pity and spontaneous orgasm, which made Shawn curl tighter and whimper a little. But if upwards of two decades of friendship were worth anything, then they really showed it in moments like this. Gus's hand rubbed Shawn's shoulder comfortingly, and there was nothing but sympathy in his voice when he said, "Haagen-Dazs?"

Shawn nodded. "And Ben and Jerry's. I feel the need for a two-pronged assault upon my emotional pain."

"No problem," Gus said, and grabbed his jacket and wallet to go do his best-friendly duty.

Half a minute later, he poked his head back through their door to say, "You're still buying me a new computer, though."

"Seriously?" Shawn pushed himself up unto his elbow and glared at him. "You really think that the right time to continue this argument is when my still-beating heart has been pulled through my ribs and shredded before my eyes?"

"Fine," Gus said with great dignity, turning to go. "...You are, though."

Shawn groaned, dropped his head onto the sofa again, and pulled the sofa cushion over his face. Ice cream would make everything better; he just had to hang on until Gus got back.


End file.
